1860 United States presidential election
A United States presidential election was held on November 6, 1860. The Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin emerged victorious.
In 1860, the United States was divided over the issue of slavery. Four major political parties nominated candidates in the 1860 presidential election. Incumbent president James Buchanan, a Democrat, did not seek re-election. The anti-slavery Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term Whig Representative from Illinois, for president. Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South, but opposed extension of slavery into the territories. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention put forward former Tennessee Senator John Bell for president. After the 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned without agreeing on a nominee, a second convention nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas as the Democratic presidential candidate. Douglas's support for the concept of popular sovereignty, which called for each territory's settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery, alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats. With President Buchanan's support, Southern Democrats held their own convention, nominating Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president.
Lincoln received a majority in the Electoral College, with all his Electoral College votes coming from Northern states. He prevailed in 18 states, won 180 electoral votes, and received 39.7% of the popular vote. Douglas won the second-highest popular vote total, but won only the state of Missouri; he was the only candidate in the 1860 election to win electoral votes in both free and slave states. Breckinridge won 11 states, finishing third in the popular vote, while Bell finished fourth in the popular vote and won the electoral votes of the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. In the last presidential election in which it appointed its presidential electors at the discretion of the state legislature rather than by popular vote, the presidential electors of South Carolina cast their ballots for Breckinridge. The 1860 election was the first of six consecutive Republican presidential victories.
Lincoln's election as the first Republican president served as the main catalyst for Southern secession and the American Civil War. His election motivated seven Southern states, all having voted for Breckinridge, to secede from the United States before Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861. The Civil War began less than two months after the inauguration with the Battle of Fort Sumter, after which four more slave states seceded.
Nominations
The 1860 presidential election conventions were unusually tumultuous, particularly because a split in the Democratic Party had led to both Northern and Southern party conventions.Republican nomination
Republican candidates:- Abraham Lincoln, former representative from Illinois
- William Seward, senator from New York
- Simon Cameron, senator from Pennsylvania
- Salmon P. Chase, governor of Ohio
- Edward Bates, former representative from Missouri
- John McLean, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
- Benjamin Wade, senator from Ohio
- William L. Dayton, former senator from New Jersey
Republican Party candidates gallery
As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that frontrunners Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Seward had been painted as a radical, and his speeches on slavery predicted inevitable conflict, which spooked moderate delegates. He also was firmly opposed to nativism, which further weakened his position. He had also been abandoned by his longtime friend and political ally Horace Greeley, publisher of the influential New-York Tribune.
Chase, a former Democrat, had alienated many of the former Whigs by his coalition with the Democrats in the late 1840s. He had also opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania and even had opposition from his own delegation from Ohio. However, Chase's firm anti-slavery stance made him popular with the Radical Republicans. But what he offered in policy he lacked in charisma and political acumen.
The conservative Bates was an unlikely candidate but found support from Horace Greeley, who sought any chance to defeat Seward, with whom he now had a bitter feud. Bates outlined his positions on the extension of slavery into the territories and equal constitutional rights for all citizens, positions that alienated his supporters in the border states and Southern conservatives, while German Americans in the party opposed Bates because of his past association with the Know Nothings.
Into this mix came Lincoln. He was not unknown; he had gained prominence in the 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debates and had represented Illinois in the House of Representatives. Lincoln had been quietly eyeing a run since the debates, ensuring that they were widely published and that a biography of himself was published. He gained great renown with his acclaimed February 1860 Cooper Union speech, which may have ensured him the nomination, even though he had not yet announced his intention to run. Delivered in Seward's home state and attended by Greeley, Lincoln used the speech to show that the Republican Party was a party of moderates, not crazed fanatics, as Southerners and Democrats claimed. Afterward, Lincoln was in much demand for speaking engagements. As the convention approached, Lincoln did not campaign actively, as the "office was expected to seek the man". So it did at the Illinois state convention, a week before the national convention. Young politician Richard Oglesby found several fence rails that Lincoln may have split as a youngster and paraded them into the convention with a banner that proclaimed Lincoln to be "The Rail Candidate" for president. Lincoln received a thunderous ovation, surpassing his and his political allies' expectations. Lincoln's campaign managers had printed and distributed thousands of fake convention admission tickets to Lincoln supporters to ensure and increase the crowd's support.
Even with such support from his home state, Lincoln faced a difficult task if he was to win the nomination. He set about ensuring that he was the second choice of most delegates, realizing that the first round of voting at the convention was unlikely to produce a clear winner. He engineered that the convention would be held in Chicago, which would be inherently friendly to the Illinois-based Lincoln. He also made sure that the Illinois delegation would vote as a bloc for him. Lincoln did not attend the convention in person and left the task of delegate wrangling to several close friends.
The first round of voting predictably produced a lead for Seward, but not a majority, with Lincoln in second place. The second round eliminated most of the minor contenders, with voters switching mostly to Seward or Lincoln. The convention remained deadlocked, however, and successful political maneuvering by Lincoln's delegates persuaded some delegates to abandon Seward in favor of Lincoln. Lincoln's combination of a moderate stance on slavery, his position on economic issues, his western origins, and his strong oratory proved to be exactly what the delegates wanted in a president. On the third ballot on May 18, Lincoln secured the presidential nomination overwhelmingly. Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine was nominated for vice president, defeating Clay. Hamlin was surprised by his nomination, saying he was "astonished" and that he "neither expected nor desired it."
The party platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the states, but opposed slavery in the territories. The platform promised tariffs protecting industry and workers, a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers, and the funding of a transcontinental railroad. There was no mention of Mormonism, the Fugitive Slave Act, personal liberty laws, or the Dred Scott decision. While the Seward forces were disappointed at the nomination of a little-known western upstart, they rallied behind Lincoln, while abolitionists were angry at the selection of a moderate and had little faith in Lincoln.
Democratic (Northern Democratic) Party nomination
Northern Democratic candidates:- Stephen Douglas, senator from Illinois
- James Guthrie, former treasury secretary from Kentucky
- Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, senator from Virginia
- Joseph Lane, senator from Oregon
- Daniel S. Dickinson, former senator from New York
- Andrew Johnson, senator from Tennessee
- Howell Cobb, treasury secretary from Georgia
Democratic Party candidates gallery
Image:1860NorthernDemocraticPartyPoster.png|thumb|Douglas/Johnson campaign poster
Six candidates were running: Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois, James Guthrie from Kentucky, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter from Virginia, Joseph Lane from Oregon, Daniel S. Dickinson from New York, and Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, while three other candidates, Isaac Toucey from Connecticut, James Pearce from Maryland, and Jefferson Davis from Mississippi also received votes.
Douglas, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored "popular sovereignty", was ahead on the first ballot, but was 56½ votes short of securing the nomination. On the 57th ballot, with Douglas still ahead, but 51½ votes short of the nomination, the exhausted and desperate delegates agreed on May 3 to cease voting and adjourn the convention.
While the Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18, 110 Southern delegates boycotted the convention or walked out after the convention informed them they would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it.
While some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the national Democratic nomination at the reconvening convention in Baltimore, Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket. After two ballots - the 59th ballot overall - the remaining Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois for president. The election would now pit Lincoln against his longtime political rival, whom Lincoln had lost to in the Illinois senate race just two years earlier. That two candidates were from Illinois showed the importance of the West in the election.
While Benjamin Fitzpatrick from Alabama was nominated for vice president, he refused the nomination.
After the convention concluded with no vice presidential nominee, Douglas offered the vice presidential nomination to Herschel V. Johnson from Georgia, who accepted.